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Subject: “Big Daddy” Don Garlits Did Not

… appreciate my enlightening share, evidently.

DWjr

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Take me off your fucking list! I don’t need to hear your liberal shit! Your type is what has happened to our great Nation! Go kiss the idiot Biden’s ass, I don’t care. He didn’t get the most votes, it was a totally illegal election!! I know that for a fact!

Don Garlits

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In the 1960s there were two things every young boy paid attention to, baseball and ABC’s “Wide World of Sports.”

It wasn’t until the late sixties that football superseded baseball as America’s Pastime. Football moved faster in a world that was moving faster. The two leagues merged. There was the Super Bowl and then Joe Namath’s called victory, baseball was never the same. But before that…scratch a baby boomer and they’ll complain their parents threw out their baseball cards, they’d be worth so much if they still had them! We didn’t save them in pristine condition in a vault as an investment, rather we put them all in a plastic bag and went to friends’ houses and at first traded, and then flipped. Yes, you flipped for cards, today that would be called a sport.

As for Saturday afternoon… At five o’clock you watched “Wide World of Sports.” This was before networks put a bug in the corner to remind you what channel you were watching. Most burgs only had three networks, and every kid could tell the difference, they knew the late night schedule by heart.

So, “The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat.” Boomers still employ that phrase today, usually ironically, but they know it better than religious treatises. And they also know the ski jumper who fell in the intro, everyone always wondered what happened to him, there was no internet, certainly no Wikipedia, unanswered questions were the rule of the day.

One can actually argue that ski jumping and bobsledding were bigger in the sixties, because they were constantly featured on “Wide World of Sports.” And this was before the fitness boom, these were just regular people competing, you didn’t have ringers from other sports, amazing physical specimens to add push and weight to your bobsled…this was a winter job, nearly a lark, and we watched…did you see when that four man sled went over the side and people died? It’s embedded in my brain, I can see it right now, albeit in black and white.

Some sports have died along the way. Like barrel jumping. That was always from Grossinger’s, in the Catskills. I remember when the record was just over ten, I believe it was twelve or so. Ultimately it went up to fourteen, fifteen, sixteen or… And if you crashed… The barrels were made out of cardboard, so the pain was lessened, but you still crashed on ice.

Another sport featured on “Wide World of Sports” was drag racing. Always from Southern California. California was exotic back then, no one saw a need to put it down, and being three hours behind the time, many people in business did not even think of it. But if you were a youngster, you had the Beach Boys, and the beach, and the girls on it, and drag racing…it was where you wanted to go and many did, for the freedom it promised, before freedom had different connotations and we started to argue over it. And one of the drag racing stars was Don “Big Daddy” Garlits. I never forgot him, who could forget that name, in an era where nicknames were prominent, like “Moose” Skowron, never mind Rattfink.

Who were these guys who built their own cars with the goal just to go fast for a quarter mile? You’d watch the different categories, gain knowledge that no one has today, in an era of specialization. This is stuff we were exposed to at a young age, Top Fuel, Funny Cars…not that I could ever figure out which one was faster, after all you got limited exposure, only on Saturday afternoons.

And the host was one Jim McKay. It took a decade for us to find out his real last name was “McManus,” how would we know? But McKay ran herd over the entire enterprise, he was our trusted authority.

Of course as time went by more people became aware of McKay, he hosted the Olympics, but the Olympics back then had a fraction of the mindshare they do today, the winter games only lasted a week, and no one got rich, not even the networks, exploitation really began in the seventies, when ballparks lost their original monikers and players started to do huge endorsement deals.

In other words, back in the sixties, in the days of “Wide World of Sports,” you can argue that life was quaint, one thing you can say for sure, we were always on the same page.

You cannot say that today.

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What changed? Well, definitely there was the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine, but in truth there was an explosion of options, first pay cable with HBO and then further premium channels as well as basic cable outlets and to think that Bruce Springsteen complained that there were only fifty seven channels and nothing on, talk about a dated view, today there are hundreds of channels, never mind streaming outlets, and people have so much to watch that many are cutting the cord, they can live quite easily without those hundreds of cable channels, they’ve got enough options.

Let’s see what else changed.

Well, instead of love your brother it became about getting rich. Taxes dropped, income inequality soared, and in the nineties it looked like everybody was winning until…

The century turned. That’s when things got bad.

It started with 9/11. It happened on American soil, the generation alive and aware back then is still not over it. And then the war. And then the 2008 crash.

Suddenly people realized there were winners and losers, and if you were a loser, it had to be somebody else’s fault. And now there were numerous outlets to reinforce that notion. That someone stole your job, the immigrants… And foreign nations were ripe for abuse too. They took the jobs. Meanwhile, Americans would switch loyalties for one dollar. Look at airline tickets. To the point where you can buy a no-frills ticket, you can’t even bring carry-on luggage, and people who buy these tickets always complain when they’re confronted with the rules, how were they supposed to know, it’s unfair! And one can criticize them for their ignorance, but the truth is we’re constantly confronted with boilerplate and no one can be an expert on everything, and no one can sacrifice, make that the 28th Amendment. No one can lose their job, no technology can cause them to go out of business, no one can make less money as the future marches on. Of course this is untrue, but people believe this, especially those in power.

So let’s say you had a job working with your hands. Most of those were shipped overseas, you can only get a service gig, retraining was a joke, and you made much less and your lifestyle took a nosedive. But as for personal impact by outside forces…it wasn’t like an immigrant was taking your job, but immigrants did have jobs, even illegal immigrants, so therefore it must be affecting your job, because of the trickle down effect, just like with taxes.

Now the truth is a lot of the jobs immigrants do citizens do not want to. Like picking grapes, it’s back-breaking work. But you read about those foreigners getting jobs in Silicon Valley, high-salaried ones, and you must be paying the price for that, you have to be. Furthermore, those who were supporting this way of life became the enemy, they weren’t Americans, there became this myth about “real Americans,” who worked hard, never got divorced, went to church, didn’t do drugs and…few of these people exist, on either end of the political spectrum.

So what we ended up with was a divide.

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I’d like to see Big Daddy’s proof that Trump won. This is like that “Catfish” show on MTV. Let me see, a movie star is interested in dating me, even though I live on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Some things just make you laugh on the surface. But in a world where everybody should get paid as an artist and a reality TV star becomes president, everyone believes they know everything and are entitled to an opinion. As for others’ contrasting opinions, they’re inherently wrong. This is America’s new sport, the divide between the believers, the political parties, not football, although they learned the game from football, it’s dirty and violent and people cheat but it’s all about winning.

Yesterday, Black people and liberals were thrilled that Chauvin was convicted. However, if you dialed in Fox, just the opposite happened. The debate was framed as pro or con police. There’s not a single American who believes there should be no police, but somehow nearly half the country believes people are saying this. It’s become an issue of semantics, catchphrases, Frank Luntz realized it was all in how you labeled it, “Death Taxes” bad, “Estate Taxes” not so much, so let’s change the term and the perception.

If you go to Fox News on your phone right now, you’ll find the Chauvin trial takes a back seat to stories about liberal media, and AOC and Hollywood and… As for Chauvin, all the stories are not about the conviction, but the penumbra, that the left just isn’t satisfied.

There are some Chauvin headlines on the sides of the page if you’re using your desktop browser, but if you’re on your phone the only relevant story is about how Pelosi handled Maxine Waters’s “revolting” remarks.

In other words, the Chauvin trial is already in the rearview mirror in the Fox News bubble. It’s back to belittling the left ad infinitum.

Note, the right is playing this game quite well, but it doesn’t have its own agenda, other than a return to the past. And while we’re at it, why don’t we get rid of music streaming, electric automobiles, smartphones… You can’t go back, it’s impossible. As for manufacturing in America… Are you willing to pay two grand for a basic flat screen? Five grand for a laptop?

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Tucker Carlson has gotten a beating in the press. But the press is now wrong unless you agree with it, the right has eliminated the “New York Times” and “Washington Post,” they’re biased and must be ignored. Carlson employs the replacement theory, an anti-Semitic trope, and when criticized for it, by the Anti-Defamation League and more, he doubles down.

But it’s bigger than Carlson. The constant blowback is about moving the goal posts, most recently voting restrictions. Donald Trump said there was voter fraud and he truly won the election and even Big Daddy Garlits believes it!

Yes, look at the maps. Chances are you live in a bubble, you only hear your own opinion repeated to you. As for those who feel differently, they’ve been excised from your life. Or they say they don’t want to talk politics, but when you scratch the surface they support Trump, because it’s good for their pocketbook.

This is America today. Yes, the police are killing Black people in the street, but almost half the country is laboring under reinforced falsehoods seen as facts that the police are innocent and the problem is with the protesters and you might read about it but you never experience it and then you get an e-mail from Big Daddy Garlits.

Words have consequences, as does spin. They call it America, but it’s really two different countries. One that believes we’re all in it together and another that is on high alert for impingement upon their “freedoms.” Hell, people refuse to get vaccinated? God, vaccines were the breakthrough of the twentieth century, can you say POLIO? Would these same people refuse to get a polio shot? Hell, they’re refusing to get a measles vaccination, the crackpots on the left too, who are so rich and educated that they believe they can create science, that they can bend facts, that the rules don’t apply to them, to the point where measles have returned from the brink. As for getting a shot for the good of others? Screw others.

So no one really knows what is going on in the other camp, or just doesn’t believe it. Believe that people think Trump won, just ask Big Daddy.

But the truth is the right is in lockstep sans agenda other than to thwart all Democratic legislation because… Because why? The public loves Obamacare, loves the stimulus bill and the infrastructure bill too. Why are Republican elected officials against it? Because politics is now a team sport. Even worse, facts are fungible. January 6th has been redefined, people didn’t die, the protesters weren’t violent, and really it was an antifa plot. Seems ridiculous, but history is being rewritten as I write this.

I just want to make you aware of it.

Rust never sleeps.

Never mind the undermining of truth by the right wing news outlets.

And why is this done? For power, for people like Murdoch, even though the rank and file are told it is being done for them as they vote against their interests.

It’s true. All those people who believe the election was stolen from Trump and more.

Just ask Big Daddy.

I’m more excited about software.

Today Apple introduced new iPad Pros, a new small iMac with the M1 processor, a new Apple TV…but the highlight was the footage from the new season of “Ted Lasso”…

“I never met someone who don’t eat sugar, only heard about ’em, they all live in this godless place called Santa Monica.”

I laughed out loud. Inside humor is still the best, which SNL used to specialize in before it went so broad as to be nearly slapstick. It’s hard to go into the nooks and crannies today, very few get the joke, but that’s where the bonding occurs. I was never a fan of Jason Sudeikis, but “Ted Lasso” made me one, and that line re sugar just bonded me to him more.

This was not the Steve Jobs presentation of yore, it was not live, but pre-produced, at a Hollywood level. There was even a superhero segment, akin to “Topkapi,” but for the small screen. I guess this is what today’s audience wants, nothing too deep, not that this Apple presentation wasn’t woke.

If you stayed until the end, there was a cornucopia of disclaimers re Covid protocols. They used to be de rigueur, but now they’re political, with so many re-entering society, sans masks, willy-nilly. It always works out the same way, the educated benefit. Yes, you can refrain from getting a vaccine for fear of…well, nothing. You can go out without a mask. But the joke is on you. As for you interacting with the rest of us, hmm…that’s what we’re debating right now, your ability to be free to infect the rest of us, can’t say I agree with that, that’s not my idea of freedom.

So, Steve Jobs had gravitas, he was a rock star delivering his new show, with production, building to the great reveal at the end of “One more thing…” But that paradigm died with Steve, as well as the Apple philosophy of keep it simple stupid. Today Apple offers so many products in so many iterations it’s mind-blowing. Amazing how one person can affect the culture so dramatically. Those were key elements of Apple, the minimalist design and the ease in buying. Now, you’ve got to study up before you purchase. And what are you gonna purchase?

You need those new tags, that work via FindMy. Come on, you know you do. To be able to find your keys via your phone? Think of what you can attach tags to… They’re vastly overpriced, yet still cheap, so they will be the new AirPods. Yes, in a world of software, where everything is on demand and we own little, never underestimate the power of these little signifiers. You want to go to the restaurant, assuming we can safely do so, and lay your keys with their Apple tag on the table. Which is why so many wankers bought AirPods, they were less concerned with the sound than the look.

As for a purple iPhone… Am I the only one who doesn’t get iPhone colors? I mean you put it in a case…

But iMac colors, those were cool, we haven’t had that spirit here since…1998, when the first candy-colored iMacs were released. The inventory controls? Ugh! Then again, this is testimony to how many they sell. As for improvements, the M1 processor is a big deal, the instant on if nothing else. And the ability to shrink the innards and increase screen size all in an extremely thin package is amazing, but doesn’t anybody who really cares about sound use external speakers?

The iPad Pro… They keep telling us it’s a desktop replacement, but I don’t know anybody who uses it this way. As for the Pro designation, if you watched this presentation you realized…you were not going to use most of its capabilities, this is one product truly for pros.

The new Apple TV? Overpriced. Everyone says to get a Roku instead. Roku’s business model is different, you get the device in people’s hands, and then Roku gets paid by the channels, even building its own channel. Apple is losing the market share race, and that is important, it’s all about critical mass, and Apple is losing it, some items are commodities and some are not, a TV streaming box is one, nearly fungible, you can get essentially everything you want for fifty bucks from Amazon or Roku, why spend four times the amount for an Apple device? Apple is blowing it with TV like Amazon blew it with the Fire phone. However, there was one cool feature, the ability to calibrate your screen, i.e. software. I mean it’s like magic. You hold your iPhone up to your TV and the image is instantly adjusted. This is a breakthrough, however one few people will experience.

As for the talent…

Apple seems to be able to do what Hollywood just talks about. There was a plethora of female presenters. They are stars in their own right. However, the more you saw them the more you scratched your head and wondered…how come there isn’t a woman with a Senior VP title? As for people of color, the man in the dāstar with the South Asian name… Apple is the MTV of yore. Yes, younger generations in the late twentieth century learned on MTV that we were all equal, people of color, races…in most cases they could be equally insane! Now Apple is leading the charge… Its presenters look like America.

As for music…it wasn’t an element. There was a closing ditty that was kind of catchy, but is that the main criterion now, mindless catchiness? You see Apple doesn’t need music. If anything, it’s been burned by the music business. As in the Jimmy Iovine/U2 debacle. But the funny thing is there’s no act with the gravitas, appeal and reach of U2 which could fill the band’s shoes today. And the world has evolved, the truth is the baby boomers no longer own it. They’re trying to rule it, but they don’t own it. You looked at the people in the presentation and you realized…they’re the children of the baby boomers, with different mores and wants.

Oh  yeah, there was an incomprehensible introduction of paid podcasts, but the truth will dribble out in the press. As for Tim Cook’s claim that you could support your favorite creator…that’s kind of rich. The guy makes tens of millions and he’s talking about creative people making pennies. As for Spotify’s tip jar, that’s an insult, whoever came up with that should be shot. If the act is not making enough on the platform to ask people to donate is just heinous, either pay creators more or shut up.

But the techies are bad with creativity. They don’t understand the ethos. Then again, for far too long the ethos of the creators has fallen in line with those of the techies. Artists are not about the money, certainly not first, they’re about the message. And prior to this century everybody knew in the creative arts only a few could support themselves, come on, it was a cliché, no parent wanted their child to be an artist. But today, with the low barrier to entry on Spotify and other platforms everybody believes they’re an artist and entitled to make a living. Who says? The business people know there is no free lunch, how come the artists don’t? And instead of complaining they should speak truth to power and then money would rain down. Isn’t it fascinating, with all the bitching about streaming payments, nobody, and I mean NOBODY, ever talks about the art, it’s about the money and nothing else. But that’s America today, where everybody feels entitled to be rich and famous, where everybody believes their failures are someone else’s fault, where everybody is looking for someone to save them when the truth is no one will.

Then again, the boomers want no change. And one thing is for sure…this presentation was all about change, pushing the envelope. If you jetted back twenty years and watched this you’d be positively stunned, you’d be drooling, but that’s how far we’ve come, so quickly, we’re no longer wowed, we expect these advancements.

But irrelevant of the products, this presentation was a triumph of marketing, a commercial in a world no one wants to watch an ad. You felt like you were getting a peak inside, if anything you wanted to work inside.

But the truth is the real power is now in the software. We need our gadgets, but our excitement over them waned years ago. The hardware is just the platform, what does the software allow us to do?

And the truth is the software is the layer between Apple and us, whether it be Big Sur or Facebook or Spotify or… This is our responsibility, this is our challenge, this is what we can do…take all these tools and create greatness. Either do that or get out of the channel, it’s too crowded already.

Tune in tomorrow, April 20th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive

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YouTube: https://bit.ly/3x9cmKX

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Most people had no idea who Eric Clapton was. Nor had they heard “Sunshine of Your Love,” it wasn’t until the summer of ’68 that the track crossed over from FM to AM, in an era where most markets didn’t even have an FM rock station. Yes, in the late sixties you could be hip or not. Today everybody is both hip and out of it. We know so many trends yet we don’t know others. You can lay into someone for being out of the loop, but they can give it right back to you if they dare.

So the cognoscenti knew Clapton from John Mayall’s “Blues Breakers” album. That was released in 1966, can you imagine? Nancy Sinatra’s boots were walking on AM radio, and at the end of the year the Monkees arrived on that train. But there were no hits on the John Mayall album, either you owned it and you knew it or you were completely out of the loop. Eventually, with the rise of Clapton’s fame, people discovered it, but to say Clapton was God in America in 1966 would be like saying you were, he was just that insignificant. But there was definitely something happening here, and it was only clear to a coterie of blues freaks in the U.K. and a few in the U.S., like Atlantic’s Ahmet Ertegun, who grew up with the sound. As for the American hoi polloi? Hendrix, never mind heavier blues-influenced acts, hadn’t even released a record yet, never mind gained notice.

Mayall’s group was a training ground, and Eric Clapton left to team up with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker in Cream. It was not a supergroup, there was no such thing, that had to wait a couple of years until 1969 and Blind Faith, most people, certainly in the U.S., had no idea who the three players were.

And some of those who knew Clapton from Mayall’s group purchased “Fresh Cream,” which was released at the end of ’66, but the truth is the album didn’t dent the universe, it was hand sold, nearly underground, back when scenes percolated and eventually broke through, or didn’t. It was very different from today, where everybody knows everything at the same time, assuming they care, and innovation is secondary to repetition. And sure, the Beatles were rich, but most people outside Hollywood and New York, who weren’t making bubble gum music, who considered themselves musicians first and stars second, if at all, were not in it for the money, there just wasn’t that much money.

Now the truth is “Fresh Cream” is an excellent album. But the sound was just not immediate enough, in your face enough. It was thrilling to go back and listen to “N.S.U.” and “I’m So Glad” after the band broke up, but most people didn’t buy “Fresh Cream” and once the band reached stardom so many were looky-loos that they didn’t go back either. But “Disraeli Gears”…

I heard “Sunshine of Your Love” on FM radio. There were multiple stations in New York. Not only WOR, but WABC and WNEW, it was a cornucopia of choices, assuming you were hip, had an FM radio at all. But those of us who did… It definitely wasn’t about the money, there were very few ads, it was about being a member of a secret club, knowing all the deejays, having a personal relationship, talking with your buddies at school about the tracks you discovered.

And this was before I could drive. So I was dependent upon my mother taking me to the store. And she’d never make a trip just for a record, but I could ride along and comb the bins and find something and buy it while she and my sister were traveling the aisles. And one day in Barker’s in February ’68, I purchased “Disraeli Gears.”

You’ve got to know this was the era where album art was everything. If it was just a picture of the band the album wasn’t worth buying, you had to make a statement, and one could stare at “Disraeli Gears” forever, not that it was ever one of my favorite sleeves, but that’s what you did while you dropped the needle and listened.

And of course I went to track 2 first, to hear “Sunshine of Your Love” on demand in my own home, it was an indelible riff. One eventually known by everybody, still known by every boomer alive, one we played on our guitars, one we sang along to on the radio.

And the truth is my favorite track on the LP, then and now, which is a rarity, is “Tales of Brave Ulysses.” It’s dark. A descending trip below the earth’s surface to where it was only you and the band on the excursion. And Clapton’s guitar set the tone, but the truth is the track is put over the top by Jack Bruce’s vocal…rich and meaningful.

And the reality is “Disraeli Gears” is inconsistent, I’d argue the songs on “Fresh Cream” are better, but that does not mean I don’t know every lick by heart. Because owning it, you played it. Music was scarce, you got your money’s worth.

My third favorite song on “Disraeli Gears” is probably track four on the first side, “Dance the Night Away.” And that riff on “SWLABR” was indelible, not that we could ever figure out what the title stood for. But my favorite was never “Strange Brew.”

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Saturday I was asleep. The walking dead. I don’t know, I didn’t get a good night’s sleep, I went out hiking and was in a daze. And I was worried I’d fall asleep on the drive home, but then I heard “Strange Brew.”

I could never figure out why “Sunshine of Your Love” was not the opening track, it was better, it was the hit.

But I’m driving in my car, not playing my guitar, but definitely feeling free, and I hear the lick. Normally I’d switch the channel, from Classic Vinyl to Howard or something, but this night “Strange Brew” resonated, and I’m not sure it’s ever resonated this way.

The last time I played “Disraeli Gears”? I can’t remember. I have played “Tales of Brave Ulysses,” I never play “Sunshine of Your Love,” and the truth is I push the button when I hear these old Cream tracks, they’re over fifty years old, Clapton has superseded them. But for some reason, “Strange Brew” felt like an old pair of shoes, comfortable, like running into a college buddy and getting right back in the groove, as if no time had passed.

That stinging guitar… This was before we thought of Clapton first and the playing second, it was just an intro, and then…

“Strange brew

Kill what’s inside of you”

Clapton? There was no Wikipedia back then, there were no extensive credits on the LP and supposedly Delaney Bramlett ultimately made Clapton comfortable with his voice and they recorded Eric’s solo debut, but this was long before that. Yes, I realized “Strange Brew” was sung by Clapton, and it was so weird, the opening cut, when Jack Bruce was clearly the lead singer?

“She’s a witch of trouble in electric blue

In her own mad mind she’s in love with you

With you

Now what you gonna do”

The lyrics are clear with remastering and today’s playback systems, but back then that’s not how we were listening, we had all-in-one record players with a small built-in speaker, which is one of the reasons we all graduated to component systems, we needed to get closer to the sound, but we weren’t at that point yet. So, chances are most people could not pick out the lyrics, never mind make sense of them.

“On a boat in the middle of a raging sea

She would make a scene for it all to be

Ignored

And wouldn’t you be bored”

The truth is I caught all of these lines except the second, until maybe today, meaning that I was unclear of the meaning, but the feel was everything.

And in my car, long after dark, I’m driving the curves of Sunset and I’m taken right back to 1968, it’s just that it truly seems like yesterday, like I’d played “Disraeli Gears” just the night before. The album was something I listened to alone in the dark, most of it I never heard on the radio, it was a private experience, then and now. And scraping away the history, the arc of Clapton’s rise to superstardom, the war between the band members, it just sounded like three blokes having a good time doing their best to capture their sound on wax, not a vehicle for a big publicity campaign, but just music. To the players this was not a new sound, they’d been growing up in this groove, but not the rest of us, our lives had been more AM pop.

So the track is playing and…I’m anticipating what’s to come. I’d played “Strange Brew” so much back then that it was burned into my soul, despite being a secondary cut and never my favorite. In my mind I was waiting for that closing riff, that Clapton could toss off without thinking, but almost no one else could. And when it came I was satisfied, no, elated.

3

In a matter of months everything changed. “Sunshine of Your Love” became a monstrous single and the band released the double album “Wheels of Fire” and by the fall of ’68, Cream was everywhere, kind of like Led Zeppelin with their second album two years later. “White Room” was added immediately to AM radio and this drove album sales and every wannabe or in reality stoner owned it and testified about it. It was all about the live second disc. This was the first drum solo most people had ever been exposed to, the fact that it went on for sixteen plus minutes did not take away from its coolness, people listened to it. And the second side of the second album started with “Train Time,” Jack Bruce’s workout, his starring moment, before the album switched to “Toad,” but really it was about the first live side, with “Crossroads” and “Spoonful.”

Despite being a Robert Johnson classic, most people weren’t aware of the delta blues original, this was the first time they heard the song, and Clapton’s playing here turned him into the icon he became in the mind of America. It was one thing to play Beatle songs on the guitar, quite another to be able to pull off “Crossroads.” As for the following “Spoonful,” this sound was nowhere else, this was envelope-pushing to listeners, they were suddenly exposed to the blues, an American sound, via this English group.

But Cream had already had enough. Just when everybody was coming up to speed, the band said it was going to break up, which was hard to understand, now everyone knows who you are, you’re making money, and you’re gonna give it all up?? This was before the Beatles broke up, nobody broke up, you just rode the wave until it crashed. You certainly didn’t break up because it no longer felt right. People were completely flummoxed, they couldn’t understand it, and although I saw the act at the New Haven Arena their last time through, most people missed it completely, by time they came on board it was over.

But there was a clean-up album, “Goodbye,” and the funny thing was demand was so strong that the album sold and sold and everybody knew it, even though the act was history. And yes, there were definitive live versions of “I’m So Glad” and “Politician,” but the best track on the LP was on the second, studio side, the indelible “Badge,” with L’Angelo Misterioso/George Harrison’s rhythm guitar work, and Clapton’s incredible descending solo, your head banging around in a sea of wind chimes. Clapton was truly god, he’d move on to work with Delaney & Bonnie, going on tour with the act and then forming the ill-fated Blind Faith before releasing his under-recognized solo debut in the spring of 1970, before forming Derek & the Dominos and becoming a legend with “Layla”…and other love songs.

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And the truth now is Clapton’s fame has superseded Cream’s by a long shot. Cream was a blip on the radar screen, Eric has been through so many changes since then, even many styles, making it with quiet ballads in addition to wailing guitar solos.

But there was that Cream reunion fifteen years ago, so those who weren’t there the first time around could see the band and the drummer and bass player could be made financially whole. But by time the show got to New York, the magic was gone. Doing it on a lark is one thing, repeating it is another.

Now in 1970, “Live Cream” was released. And then two years later, “Live Cream Volume II.” You’d see them in the bins, but the hard core never bought them, they looked like a dash for cash, the past, when there was so much new music to be excited about.

But that was then and this is now.

Today, being a musician is second to being a brand. Chops? Well, they’re built on social media, as for spending years perfecting your guitar skills, very few do that. That’s not the sound people want to hear. So, strangely, it’s like it was fifty years ago, the original music, in that case delta blues, in this case Cream and English blues-rock, are hiding in plain sight, will this sound be rediscovered?

The blues never dies. There are people playing it today. But it just doesn’t square with radio and promotion paradigms, the songs are extended, they’re often sludgy and quiet, today everything has to be immediate, upbeat, up front and center.

And then I’m driving in my car and I stumble upon “Strange Brew” and I’m reminded of the magic that once was. When this business was being built. Before tickets were a hundred bucks and the acts took the lion’s share of the money, when a gold record was not 500,000 units, but $500,000. The music business was just growing out of its sideshow status. But music was where it was all happening, where limits were being tested, and you had to listen if you wanted to know which way the wind blew, and that was very important back then.

But we’ve been through so many changes since then. Corporate rock. Disco. MTV. Grunge. Hip-hop… Cream is ancient history. But the funny thing is the records haven’t changed, and since they weren’t made to fit in, they still stand out today, there’s nothing else quite like them. Strange brew indeed!